CORE STORY: Both X-Men and Alice have disappointing opening weekends

X-Men: Apocalypse, the latest Marvel mutant movie and sequel to 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past, opened to a weekend of an estimated $65-million. Days of Future Past opened on the same weekend two years ago to $91-million.

While sequels typically open bigger than their predecessors, several factors counted against the X-Men: Apocalypse, including weak reviews and the lack of cast members from the original X-Men trilogy, all of whom came back for the time-travelling Days of Future Past.

While Twentieth Century Fox may be disappointed with the smaller opening, they surely feel better than Disney right now. Alice Through the Looking Glass, their sequel to 2010’s Alice in Wonderland, opened to a paltry $28-million.

That may not seem objectively awful until you consider Alice in Wonderland opening to $116-million six years ago and Alice Through the Looking Glass costing a reported $170-million, before marketing.

Alice had a lot going against it. It was opening the same weekend as the most adult X-Men: Apocalypse. It came a full six years after the original — a lifetime in family-friendly movies. It got scathing reviews. It came out the same week as Johnny Depp’s very public divorce.

Most relevantly to its failure, Alice Through the Looking Glass was a sequel nobody really wanted. Much of the original’s success is credited to it arriving three months after Avatar and being the first 3D fantasy audiences had to sate that same appetite.